Oil Is Bankrupt

I live across the 101 from the Cat Canyon Project, and I am concerned about the air and water quality from these oil projects.

Due to oil and gas extraction, two billion gallons of toxic chemicals are injected into the ground daily in the U.S., with 25 percent of those chemicals being linked to cancer.

On March 13, ERG Resources will go before the County Planning Commission to request permission to drill 233 new oil wells in Cat Canyon, near Santa Maria. They will use large injection engines that spew air pollution and volatile organic compounds into the air, as well as leaking toxic chemicals into groundwater and crops using extreme extraction drilling.

In the United States, 1 in 285 children will be diagnosed with cancer before their 20th birthday. A large and growing body of research implicates everyday exposure of toxic chemicals in increasing the risk of cancer. In 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel reported that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”

Due to the location of these wells, low-income and marginalized people — and their children — are inordinately affected by the toxicity involved.

ERG has the highest spill volume of any county oil company, in fact 39,000 gallons which is three times as much as Greka, and ERG’s proposed project is only 1,900 feet from an elementary school.

Write the Planning Commission and your Board of Supervisors and tell them to put children’s health ahead of the profits of a morally and fiscally bankrupt ERG.